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What about generativity versus

stagnation? Ages 35 - 60

Stage 7: Generativity or Stagnation? The next stage of development is adulthood which encompasses ages 35 to 60 generally. After people have established intimacy and been successful in loving and being loved, their interests begin to go beyond just the two of them and they become concerned with raising the next generation. In Erikson’s terms, they enter a stage of generativity versus self-absorption and stagnation. Generativity is a broad term which refers not only to the creation of children but also to the production of things and ideas through work. (Also, see NOTE #16, page 297.)

Still Developing? Ages 60 +

Stage 8: Hopefully, Yes! Ego Integrity or Despair? The last stage covers ages 60 and over. This is the time that people begin to reflect upon their own lives, and out of this reflection comes wisdom. These older individuals now begin to see the world in a spiritual sense; often through the ter­ rible price of suffering and loss. They accept their lives and what has happened and see value in their being, their struggles, their triumphs and failures. These people now understand, appreciate and love their own parents and children and feel a certain oneness with mankind which transcends cul­ ture and geography. These persons rec­ ognize that they have something in com­ mon with all men regardless of their socioeconomic group. (Also, see NOTE #17, page 298.)

Appendix to Chapter 7

NOTE #1 - Cognitive Development

At a social gathering of friends, I heard a father tell his three year old daughter not to take any candy from a serving bowl that was on the coffee table. A few minutes later her cheeks were bulging with candy and he was furiously scolding her. He demanded, “Why did you take candy when I told you not to?” The child was bewildered and just looked up with thick, juicy slobber dripping off her chin. The angry father continued, “Why don’t you mind? If you don’t answer me I’m going to spank you!” The child started to cry and the slobber got worse.

Father again demanded, “Stop crying and tell me why you took the candy!” He was getting furious and the child was becoming more frightened and confused. This was emotional child abuse and about to become physical abuse. This child had not yet developed the mental capacity to evaluate the father’s question, reflect back on her reasons for taking the candy and then respond in an intelligent way. She did not know! She could not answer and her father’s anger only frightened her more. Children treated in this way begin to believe they are bad, no good, and certainly not loved.

NOTE #2 - Assimilation

Assimilation involves taking in information and adding it to existing cognitive structures. A child who is familiar with the family dog has a certain cognitive structure for “dog” in his head. He greatly adds to this structure however, when he is introduced to another dog that is smaller, hairier, a different color, and barks and bites. The assimilation of new information enlarges the cognitive structure on “dogs”.

NOTE #3 - Accommodation

When objects or experiences do not fit into our existing cognitive structures we can’t find a file to fit them into. We must therefore, open a new file and build a new cognitive structure. A child sees a toy on a shelf but is unable to reach it; she whimpers but no one comes. She looks at the lower shelves and then again at the toy. She steps forward, and while holding one of the shelves, steps up on the bottom shelf, thereby raising herself high enough to barely reach the toy. Through these simple accommodations infants and children begin constructing increasingly more efficient and elaborate ways (cognitive structures) of dealing with the world.

NOTE #4 - Sensory Motor Development,

approximately 0-2 years

  Period 1 - Birth to 1 month

A scheme or schema is any pattern of action, such as looking, grasping, and kicking, which is used for dealing with the environment. The first schemes are primarily inborn reflexes such as sucking, which occurs automatically when the infant’s lips are touched. A hungry infant will open his mouth and search for mother’s breast, groping until he finds the nipple. Soon all sorts of objects are “assimilated” into the sucking scheme, including fingers, blankets, toys, and almost anything else.

Period 2 - 1 to 4 months

A circular reaction occurs when by accident, the baby has a new experience and tries to repeat it. For example, he unsuccessfully chases his fingers with his mouth. At this point he is unable to make the “accommodations” necessary to “assimilate” the fingers into the sucking scheme. After much effort and failure he gradually organizes sucking and hand movements, and masters the skill of thumb sucking. Most of the primary circular reactions involve the organization of two previously separate body movements after repeated tries. New behavior comes about by “constructing” complex behaviors from more basic behaviors.

Period 3 - 4 to 10 months

Secondary circular reactions occur when the infant discovers and is able to reproduce an interesting event outside of his own body; he realizes he has power to affect his own external world. For example, a child is laying in his crib looking at the mobile hanging above him. By chance he kicks excitedly; the bed squeaks and the figures hanging in the mobile jump and swing because they are attached to the bed. He stops to watch, and then excitedly kicks again to see the figures dance and swing. He has connected the movement of the mobile with his kicking. Children enjoy this new power, the ability to make an event happen again and again. A child will often squeal with delight as he repeatedly kicks and observes the results. The infant performs a single action to get a result.

Period 4 - 10 to 12 months

At this stage the child must perform and coordinate two or more separate behavioral patterns to get a result. For example, Laura sees her pacifier beneath the clear plastic drop cloth mother is using as she paints a figurine. She reaches for it and tries to grasp it but cannot, and is frustrated after several attempts. Finally she lifts the plastic (Scheme I), grasps the pacifier (Scheme II), and puts it in her mouth (Scheme III). When Laura learned to lift the plastic she showed a sense that some objects are under others in space and that some events must precede others in time.

Period 5 - 12 to 18 months

In stage five children experiment, through direct manipula­ tion of their physical world, using little thinking and no planning, with differ­ ent ac­ tions to observe different outcomes. For example, a child in the bath tub is observed putting his hand under the faucet and watching how the water sprays outward. He repeats the action a few times, shifts the position of his hand higher and lower and turns his hand over and over, continually observing how the water sprays out at dif­ ferent angles. This child is developing a “scheme” solely out of an intrinsic cu­ riosity about the world. He is learning on his own by interact­ ing with his environment.

Period 6 - 18 to 24 months

At this stage children obviously begin to think before they act. When first attempts are not successful, you can see children stop trying, think, and then move quickly to accomplish their goal. An example is related by Piaget about his own daughter. Piaget put a chain in a match box and his daughter tried to recover it by turning the box over and sticking her finger in the slit. Then she stopped struggling with the box and fixed her eyes attentively on the slit. As she thought, she began to open and close her mouth several times in succession, wider and wider each time. Then she proudly opened the box and obtained the chain. When she understood that the slit could open wider (like her mouth) she solved the problem!

NOTE #5 - Preoperational Thought,

approximately 2-7 years

Preoperational thought marks a major change from Stage I Sensor Motor thought. Preoperational children rapidly advance to the new plane of symbols such as language and images. This requires them to reorganize their thinking again and again. Preoperational thought is pre-logical and unsystematic. In nonlinguistic symbols (make-believe play) children might use cardboard boxes for houses or forts. Children are accustomed to seeing new and wondrous things happen that make no sense to them, but they attempt to sort them out and understand the “how?” and “why?” of their fascinating world.

Language gives the child power to communicate to others about past, present and future events. However, because the child’s mind is expanding so rapidly, the properties of coherent logic cannot possibly keep up with all the input. The overload is so great that the two-year-old child often communicates and links concepts and events that are actually not logically connected.

In the conservation of water example, preoperational children cannot see that logically the amount of water must still be the same. They fail to “conserve” and instead attribute some water “loss” to the act of pouring from glass to bowl because they see the levels are now different. They can only consider one dimension of the problem at a time. In other words, they see only that the height of the level has gone down, not that the width is greater and compensates for the lower level. They focus on only one dimension of the problem, unable to consider two aspects and evaluate them at the same time.

Children in the preoperational stage can also create two rows of equal number of cups and saucers, but if you lengthen or shorten one row they think that the number has changed. They are much more influenced by perceptions than they are by logic. Again, they are not yet able to hold two factors in their minds at the same time. They are perceptually overwhelmed when one row looks much longer than the other.

When the child becomes confused with conflicting perceptions, he stands at the door to the next level of cognitive development, concrete operations. “This glass has more because it’s higher. No wait! This glass has more because it’s fatter!” They are confused, change their answer, and finally say, “I don’t know!” Piaget believed preoperational thought to be prelogical, perception bound, and irreversible. Preoperational thought is governed by perception rather than logic, and children are therefore impulsive, easily distracted and full of fantasy and magical thinking.

When a child can perform a mental operation he is no longer pre-operational. When he can reason in his mind that one of the glasses has been poured into a wider bowl of equal volume, but that nothing has been lost, he has “conserved,” and thereby entered the world of concrete thinking. The child has not actually poured the water back physically, he has performed the task mentally. He has thought the process forward, reversed it, and concluded that nothing was lost. Logic has triumphed over perception; things are not always what they seem.

NOTE #6 - Preoperational and Concrete

Thinking Compared

Following are some comparisons between the thinking processes of preoperational children (about ages 2 to 7) and concrete operational children (about ages 7 to 11).

1. Egocentrism

An egocentric person feels or thinks only from his own perspective. Preoperational children are egocentric because they have not yet mentally developed to the point of seeing from another person’s point of view; they are unable to distinguish their own personal perspective from that of others. In other words, preoperational children might appear egocentric, selfish and inconsiderate because they can only focus on their own perspective. They act selfishly, greedy and inconsiderate of others, not because they are, but because they really can’t put themselves in another’s position and understand how the “other” person is feeling or thinking. They see only one side of every issue, their own.

Preoperational children are incapable of real empathy, and although you might have complained of a terrible headache and upset stomach, they persistently insist that you read a story to them, possibly throwing a tantrum if you don’t. They just cannot have true empathy for your pain until they enter the concrete operational period where they can simultaneously coordinate two perspectives of a problem. The concrete operational child can “decentralize” and see a problem or situation from another person’s point of view. He can hold in his mind two perspectives simultaneously and compare and evaluate them. These perspectives must be thoughts about concrete objects and activities in his life; he has not yet reached formal operational thinking which is truly abstract thinking.

A six-year-old would likely select a present for mom that he would value because he assumes that what is valuable to him would also be valuable to mom. A toy boat or truck might be his selection if not advised by older persons. A ten-year-old would be able to “see” from mom’s perspective and select something judged to be of value to his mother, possibly a can opener or apron.

As children overcome egocentrism, they consider the reactions and viewpoints of others and learn to coordinate their actions in joint endeavors. Cooperative play begins as the child leaves preoperational thinking and enters operational (concrete) thinking. Much peer interaction is initially egocentric. Children sense that grownups understand what they are thinking while their peers do not. Therefore they are forced to consider the viewpoints of their friends in order to be understood.

2. Moral Judgment

In his work “The Moral Judgment of the Child” (1932), Piaget observed how children thought about the rules in the game of marbles. He concluded that children at the preoperational level played in a very egocentric manner; each boy playing in his own way. After about age seven the boys tried to follow the rules, believing that the rules were fixed and could not be changed. After about age ten the boys came to believe that rules were more relative, and that they were not fixed or absolute. They agreed that rules could be changed, and that by mutual agreement they could devise new rules and new games.

By age eleven or twelve children perceive that rules by parents are not “divine”! They understand that rules and laws can (and should) be changed or improved as the occasion might require. As children come to realize that rules are created by imperfect people (like themselves) they move into the adult world of thinking called formal operations. Most importantly, it begins to dawn on these children that parents cannot force them to keep rules they feel are unfair! They see that rules are only obeyed because people agree to obey them; people cannot be forced! They want parents to acknowledge this; they want credit for their voluntary compliance.

Parents, the preceding paragraph is one of the most important you will read in this program. It could well be memorized and recited every day. Several major concepts are inferred, including: the impossibility of government by coercion, the virtue of government by voluntary compliance, and the need for constant recognition of personal rights, and sincere appreciation for doing what is virtuous.

3. Animism

Animism is the belief that everything is alive. Younger children do not distinguish between living and nonliving objects in the same way that older children and adults do. Preoperational children believe that everything is alive and thinks and feels as they do. Some statements that convey this thinking are:

Is the sun alive? Yes. Why? Because it gives light.

The stick hurts because it burns and is on fire.

Why did the marble roll off the table and under the couch? Because he was afraid of the big marble and ran away.

Is the bicycle alive? Yes. Why? Because it goes.

After age eight or so children restrict life to things that move by themselves, and later begin to realize that only plants and animals are really alive. Eventually animism is completely abandoned.

4. Dreams

At first children believe dreams are real. A four-year-old says her dream was really there but left when she woke up. Soon children realize their dreams are not real, but still think their dreams are visible to others, that they come from somewhere outside of themselves, and that they see them somewhere outside of themselves, like watching television. By age six or seven children realize that dreams are not real, are invisible to others, and that they are of internal origin and location, in their own heads.

NOTE #7 - Moral Development

In review of Piaget’s observations of moral development in children, we recall that children younger than 10 or 11 years old believe:

? That rules are fixed and absolute.

? That rules are given by God or adults and therefore cannot be changed.

Piaget also observed that children older than 10 or 11 years old believe:

? It is okay to change rules if everyone agrees.

? Rules are made by humans to get along cooperatively.

A story was told to a group of children about two boys. One boy was helping his mother and broke several cups accidentally, the other boy accidentally broke one cup as he tried to steal cookies. Interestingly, the younger children based their moral judgment on the consequences (the damage), and felt the boy who broke several cups was “worse”. The older children based their judgment on the intentions of the boys, the motives underlying their acts. They would therefore not punish the boy who had good intentions and accidentally broke several cups, but would punish the boy who was stealing. This shift in thinking occurs as children are about to enter the formal operations level of thinking, approximately age eleven.

NOTE #8 - An Example and Overview of Kohlberg’s Stages

For a better understanding of how moral thinking develops we will use one of Lawrence Kohlberg’s classic story examples.

Heinz Steals Medicine

A woman had cancer and was near death. The doctors recommended a drug they thought might save her. This drug was in the form of radium which had been discovered by a druggist in town. The druggist made the radium at a cost of $200 but charged $2,000.00 for just a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband (Heinz) did everything possible to raise the money but he could only raise $1,000. He went to the druggist and begged him to take $1,000 and let him pay the rest later but he would not. The druggist said that he had discovered the drug and was going to make money from it. Heinz said his wife would die soon if she did not get the drug. The druggist sent him away because he did not have $2,000. Heinz was desperate and loved his wife, so that night Heinz broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Should he have done that?

Stage 1: Preconventional Morality (Obedience and Punishment Orientation)

Generally this corresponds to Piaget’s preoperational thinking, focusing generally only on one aspect of the issue. These children see only one dimension at a time. Therefore, they respond to the Heinz story typically by saying, “It’s against the law to steal. He is bad to steal. He’ll get caught and go to jail.”

Their moral reasoning is that it’s bad to steal because you’ll get punished for being bad. These children see morals as something externally imposed upon them by authority figures in the form of rules which must be obeyed, or you’ll be punished.

Stage 2: Preconventional Morality (Individualism and Exchanging Viewpoints)

At this stage children are beginning to feel a sense of “fairness” that is not based upon rules set by others. They view punishment as something to avoid and not necessarily justified if they or Heinz had a good reason for doing something. Children at this level said the druggist was “unfair” and trying to “rip-off” poor Heinz! So, it was okay to steal. Besides, if Heinz does something nice for his wife, she might do something nice for him.

They come to realize that there is not just one right view that is handed down by an irrevocable authority; everyone has different opinions. Therefore they conclude that everything is relative, and each person is free to pursue his own individual interest. These children see Heinz as justified in stealing if he needs his wife alive to care for the children, or maybe he shouldn’t steal because he might go to jail. Their reasoning for what is right or wrong for Heinz is what meets his own self-interests.

Stage 3: Conventional Morality (Emphasis: Good Interpersonal Relationships )

Children at this level look past the law and see human needs. “Good” behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such as love, empathy, and concern for others. They comment that Heinz was a good man and tried to save his wife and that he tried to be fair to the selfish druggist who didn’t care if someone died. Some even thought the druggist should be put in jail for being so greedy and unfeeling.

These children believe that their attitudes and conclusions about Heinz would be shared by the entire community, and that anyone would say that Heinz was right to do what he did. Stage three moral reasoning works best in two-person relationships with family members or close friends, when one can make a real effort to get to know the other’s feelings and needs and try to help.

Stage 4: Conventional Morality (View: Maintaining the Social Order)

At this stage the child goes beyond the close relationships of Stage three and becomes more broadly concerned with society as a whole. “We must obey and support society’s laws, or we will destroy society.” Now it becomes very important to obey laws, respect authority and perform one’s duties responsibly so that social order is maintained. In other words, these children comprehend Heinz’s dilemma, yet are very concerned with the harm that could be done to society if everyone just did what they personally felt was right or justified. This would produce civil chaos.

At this level children acknowledge that Heinz’s motives were good and his needs justified, but they cannot condone his theft. They question Heinz’s right to break the law because this action (although “justified”) has serious impact beyond the theft; it destroys the law and order of society.

Stage 5: Postconventional Morality (Belief: Social Contracts/Individual Rights)

People now begin to ask, “What makes a good society?” They take a hard look at their own society and begin thinking about the rights and values that a society ought to have. They believe that a good society is best conceived as a social contract into which people freely enter to work towards the benefit of all. They acknowledge that in society we will find many social groups; all with differing values.

Stage 5 people make it clear that they do not favor breaking the law. They look upon law as social contracts that we agree to uphold until we can change them through democratic means. However, Heinz’s wife’s right to live is a moral right which must be protected. People at this level of moral reasoning claim that it was the husband’s duty to save his wife. The fact that her life was in danger transcended every other standard one might use to judge his action; the moral issue far outweighs the legal one. In a good society the legal and moral issues coincide. When they conflict we usually find that the moral laws are higher than the man-made laws accepted by society. Life is more important than property!

Stage 6: Postconventional Morality (Universal Principles as the Basis)

Rights might not be protected even with the best democratic processes. Kohlberg believed that there must be a higher stage, one which would define the principles by which we achieve justice. Great moral leaders, such as Gandhi, model Stage 6 morality. Gandhi lived to plead for principles which require us to treat the claims of all parties in an impartial manner so that the dignity of all people will be respected. The principles of justice are therefore universal and guide us to make laws based upon equal respect for all.

Gandhi led his nonviolent protest (against a world power) armed only with courage, truth and popular support, winning what rifles and bombs could not have accomplished. This great man destroyed unjust laws. He felt that laws are only valid insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Gandhi set out to disobey the many unjust laws imposed by a foreign power that had presumed to govern his people by force. His public disobedience brought before the eyes of the whole world the terrible injustices England was enacting upon his country.

Summary of Kohlberg’s Moral Development